-0.0008(-0.1310%)

+0.0012(+0.1115%)

Trump is reportedly 'very unhappy' with Sarah Huckabee Sanders for how she responded to questions about Stormy Daniels

Trump is reportedly 'very unhappy' with Sarah Huckabee Sanders for how she responded to questions about Stormy Daniels

During a press briefing on Wednesday, the White House press secretary, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, responded to questions about an alleged affair between President Donald Trump and Stormy Daniels, a former porn star, in 2006.

While reiterating Trump's denials of an affair, Sanders also said Trump won an arbitration case, marking the first acknowledgment from the White House that Trump was involved with Daniels in legal proceedings, CNN noted.

Daniels says she met Trump at Lake Tahoe in 2006 and began a sexual affair that continued sporadically for about a year.

President Donald Trump is not happy with how the White House press secretary, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, handled questions from reporters about an alleged sexual affair years ago between him and the former porn star Stormy Daniels, CNN reported Thursday.

"POTUS is very unhappy," CNN quoted a source close to the White House as saying. "Sarah gave the Stormy Daniels storyline steroids yesterday."

Fox News' White House correspondent, however, said reports of Trump's unhappiness with Sanders were "patently false."

Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford, says she met Trump at a celebrity golf tournament in Lake Tahoe in July 2006 - shortly after his wife, Melania Trump, gave birth to their son, Barron - and that the two began an affair that continued on and off for about a year.

Weeks before the 2016 presidential election, Donald Trump's longtime personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, paid Daniels $US130,000 to prevent her from talking about the alleged affair. Cohen says the money was his own.

When asked during a press conference on Wednesday whether Trump approved that payment, Sanders deflected.

"Look, the president has addressed these directly and made very well clear that none of these allegations are true," Sanders said. "This case has already been won in arbitration. And anything beyond that, I would refer you to the president's outside counsel."

Later, when pressed on the details of the arbitration case, Sanders said it was won "in the president's favour" by his personal attorneys. She referred reporters to the president's outside counsel for more details.

CNN noted that Sanders' comment about the case was the first time the White House had acknowledged that the president was involved with Daniels in any legal proceedings.

Meanwhile, Daniels' lawyer, Michael Avenatti, has denied that any such victory took place, telling CBS News that Sanders' claim is "completely false."